Travel Location: Oceania,Australia

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia

I only spent 3 days in Sydney but in that time I think I saw a lot of what the city has to offer. I did the usual walk around the harbour front one day to see the opera house and the harbour bridge which was good. There was a huge thunderstorm that started when I was in that area and it looked like the opera house got struck a few times – I tried to get a photo of the lightning striking it but I couldn’t get it (a lot of other people were trying to do the same thing, not sure if anyone was able to get a photo of it). After the storm had ended, it became really windy for about 20 minutes or so and as I was walking down a street in the city centre, one of those big metal barriers they put around the outside areas of Starbucks came flying towards me pretty fast. I was able to dive out the way of it but it caught my foot and cut it a little bit – didn’t do too much damage though and it’s fine now. Good job I saw it coming towards me though because it could of been bad if it hit me properly! Whilst in Sydney, I also went to check out Bondi beach. It was a weekend day that I went so it was quite busy there, it was a really hot day as well which I guess would of added to the numbers. It surprised me how cold the water was, I was expecting it to be fairly warm but it was absolutely freezing – it was like being at Scarborough!

After Sydney the next stop was Melbourne. I took a night bus there which took about 12 hours and it was a fairly comfortable journey compared to some of the coaches I’ve been on in the last few months. I was expecting Melbourne to be similar to Sydney but it seemed like a very different city. The city is very compact and has a grid layout which makes it very easy to find your way around. Most of the outskirts of the city is parkland and there is a huge amount of green land all around the place which I wasn’t expecting – it must be one of the most green cities in the world. I also noticed that Melbourne seems to be a very sport-orientated place as all the locals are sport crazy. Very close to city centre there’s quite a few big sports stadiums including the big cricket ground and the Albert Park grand prix track is also very near – not on the outskirts of the city like most places put them. I read that it was voted as one of the most live-able cities in the world recently and I can understand why – it just seems like a nice place to be.

From Melbourne I had a one night stop over in Adelaide before making my way into the outback and I’m currently in Alice Springs, but I’ll be writing about all that next time. Bye!

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Travel Location: Oceania,New-Zealand,North-Island

I hope you are all good, I cant believe that it is December already! it seems that 2009 is just zooming by and I cant quite believe that we are heading into Christmas. Believe me, its really weird having our first warm Christmas, I keep seeing the sky at night get lighter and lighter as well as all the blossom coming out on the trees…it really doesn’t compute in my head at all!

It seems ages since I last wrote to you all, so allow me to fill you in with what we have been up too since we went to Taupo.

Firstly, it was a very busy time at the Zoo, we had a very demanding four year old Orangutan, named Madju who wanted a star studded birthday bash! he he ! (well not really, he was actually very well behaved!) But, we thought that it would be a good idea to throw a party for Madju and at the same time highlight the plight of Orangutans and other animals who live in the Rainforest by launching our “Don’t Palm Us Off” campaign. This campaign seeks to highlight the fact that palm oil plantations are destroying the animals natural habitat, and in short the Orangutan could be extinct in the next 10 years if the plantations continue at their current rate! So, as a team we thought it would be a good idea to lobby the food standards agency into labelling all supermarket products that contain palm oil and its derivatives as “palm oil” so please see a link to the page for more info and to sign the petition http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/default.asp?sectionID=420 also watch the video with Rhys Darby, very funny!

The event was a great success, we had a palm oil free bake off (you can see Burma our elephant sampling some of the cup cakes) and Madju had a great time, we decorated the enclosure with presents and treats which kept the whole Orangutan familly occupied – as you can see Madju’s dad got to the presents before he did! which was a bit cheeky! It was a great day and one I think me and Mike will never forget! – If only we could take Burma home with us!

Sadly, my contract at the Zoo has now come to an end…it was a great time and although I am sad its over, I feel very lucky that I have worked somewhere like that – I can truthfully say my colleagues were animals and not get into trouble for it! he he

Last weekend we decided to be outdoorsy for a change and decided we should go to Rangitoto Island and climb the Volcano there (like you do!) It was brilliant! although blistering hot! (the volcano hasn’t erupted in the last 600 yers but the rocks are porous so still give out a lot of heat!) plus the sand flies (which bite) where out in full force! The Volcano was 300 meteres high, and I really didn’t think we were going to do it but we did, it was a great achievement to get to the top and see all the islands dotted around us.

This weekend just gone, we watched the Santa Parade go down Queen street in Auckland, it was a lot of fun and Mike was pretty hyper on all the free candy canes they were giving out… (mental note, don’t give Mike sugar….ever) It was good to get all Christmassy, as we miss all our friends and family! It was also good to have a bit of a giggle ( a lot of the people in the parade looked bored as hell!) and there was a lot of “British stiff upper lip-ness” going on when people in the parade tried to interact with crowd! some people looked as scared as hell, which was funny!

Anyway, I’m going to sign off now and we will be in touch soon – and all the best for Christmas if we don’t do another blog entry before then.

Remeber to scroll down for all the photos, and if you get a chance, drop us an email, it would be lovely to hear from you, thanks for all your comments on the blog so far, its been great to hear from you, really made our day!

Mwah – much love

Marie and Mike

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia,South-Australia,Kangaroo-Island

One of our first places to check out was Prospect Hill. It was a bit of a climb to the top, but we got some great views all around. You could even clearly see the narrowest part of the island, where the ocean would almost rejoin with itself. We had lunch at a eucalyptus farm, where they manufacture the oil from eucalyptus trees and use it to make a variety of products, from makeup to cleaning products. The oil has a very distinctive scent, and is also great at removing glue!

Next we spent some time on a couple of beaches. One of them involved weaving your way through a large series of rocks, eventually revealing the beach. The weather was a bit too chilly for swimming, but the views were awesome. And incase we hadn’t had enough sand in our shoes, our next stop was the Little Sahara Desert! Now, it’s not an actual desert, but more like a very large series of sand dunes. It didn’t matter though, because it made for some great sand boarding. We were all novices when it came to the sport, but it turned out that Hillary and mine experience with tobogganing was just what we needed. And much like tobogganing, the ride down is great, but the climb up is what eats up all your time.

We eventually found our way to our cabin. It was a small little thing, filled with bunk beds and a kitchen. Luckily we didn’t need to spend too much time inside since we were all scoping out the wildlife! We found a few koalas doing what they do (sleeping) not more than thirty meters from our doorway. Then came the wallabies! There must have been hundreds of them, all out in the plains within viewing distance of the porch! Such an amazing sight. Of course it made it a bit difficult for our final activity of the day, which was penguin spotting. You see, driving through those fields proved a bit hazardous, especially when it looked like the wallabies were having a contest of who could hop in front of our bus the closest (without getting hit). We had a few close calls. But it was worth it to see some Little Penguins. The smallest of the penguin species (I’m sure you assumed by the name), they have a nesting ground on Kangaroo Island. These guys wait for dark and then climb out of the water to their nests after a long day (or a few) at sea gathering food. Of course with it being dark we had trouble finding them, but we spotted a few climbing up the rocky shore’s edge to their awaiting children. With no more excitement for the night, we returned to our cabin for a nice warm fire and some nice gooey marshmallows!

Kevin (and Hillary)

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Travel Location: Oceania

Graham designed the floating structures in the Marina. The fingers had the new design whereby the pile goes through the end of the rounded finger. This makes for a very attractive pontoon.

New Zealands Prime Minister John Key officially opened the Marina. He flew into Whangamata in an Iriquoi helicopter.
It was all very exciting as we were very lucky to be able to talk to him and shake his hand. Graham was able to talk to him about the Resource Management Act and all its ramifications.

I didn’t wash my hand for a few hours!!!!!!

There were thousands of people at the opening, I think all of Whangamata was there.

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Travel Location: Oceania,New-Zealand,South-Island,West-Coast,Fox-Glacier

It’s all very well dashing about NZ doing amazing things, but at some point one has to organise domestic stuff and, as Harry says, “domestic stuff is too hard for men”. The motel at Wanaka was blessed with a laundry and, as luck would have it, it was a gloriously sunny day so we did our 4th big wash of the trip (just to rassure you that we’re keeping ourselves tidy).

Whilst watching me hanging out the washing, Harry saw a Tiger Moth flying overhead towards the local airport and he decided it was incumbent upon him to organise manly pursuits. So off we went in search of the Tiger Moth. We had an inkling that if we followed the signs to the airport we’d have a good chance of finding it, which we did. It’s clear from the photo that Harry missed his true vocation. He looks happy and at home in his Biggles jacket, and he chirruped on about his flight and being allowed to take over the controls for ages afterwards.

Wanaka is like a mini Queenstown with lots going on and lakes all over the shop. We drove from Wanaka to Fox Glacier via the Haast Pass – all incredibly picturesque with mountains, gorges, waterfalls and blue lakes on the way. Fox and Franz Joseph are famous for their land terminating glaciers which makes them very accessible. The weather had turned cloudy, rainy and cold again when we arrived in Fox so we were resigned to not seeing very much as we didn’t think the helicopters would fly and we didn’t fancy a half day/whole day hike in grotty conditions. So we decided to do the free half-hour walk to the face of the Fox Glacier. When we saw it, even from a distance, we were bowled over. Close up it’s magnificent, but we kept to the safe distance advised because the face is notoriously unstable. To get an idea of scale, one of the photos shows a person as a 1mm dot against a pile of snow in front of the glacier face.

Luckily for us the clouds then lifted a bit and we were able to fly over both glaciers. The flight was something else entirely. Nathan, our 26-year old pilot, was the coolest dude you’d ever meet. He could land the helicopter on the smallest of spots, which he did just below Mount Cook. There are a couple of photos from the small ridge that we landed on. When he took off from the ridge he just went straight over the top and down a vertical face. He chased a mountain goat, flew down river valleys and flew helter-skelter-like up and over mountain peaks. It was a totally exhillarating and awesome flight. Because we’ve seen the French Alps that have glaciers at Val Thorens and Tignes we’d assumed that the NZ glaciers would be similar. Wrong. They’re like mountains of ice with enormous stacks and crevaces everywhere, some of which are 150 metres deep, all concertina’d up, and the ice is pale blue because of the minerals in it. I make no apologies for going on about it because it deserves more than a few lines. TV and books cannot compare with seeing them up close and personal.

A final smile was Nathan deciding to fill up with aviation fuel on the way back. He just landed the helicopter at an airfield in Franz Joseph and coolly filled up whilst texting, just like he was pulling his car into a BP garage. It was then up and over the mountain and back to Fox. Brilliant!!!

Love to all – Angela and Harry xx

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia,Northern-Territory,Kakadu-National-Park

Three major rivers runs through this iconic park, has been an Aboriginal paradise for more than 50,000 years and managed jointly by its Aboriginal traditional owners ( Anangu) and the Director of National Parks. Visiting Kadaku is probably handing yourself a trophy stroked by its natural and cultural heritage of the world. Discover why it is listed as one of the World Heritage, plan your vacation with money wise benefits and experience satisfaction. Explore biodiversity, remarkable geological and landform, perfect state of nature, culture and history on your next trip.

Campervan your way to Kadaku National park through a motorhome hire . You can take it 250 km west of Darwin via the Stuart and Arnhem Highways. Check out campervans in Darwin and all around Australia. Camping grounds are provided throughout the park secure permits from the Park Headquarters.

Kadaku has a variety of discoveries to offer rather than just a national park with the “national” word on it. It is open every day of the year and has lots of activities to offer. Navigate it best through commercial tours available at the visitor centre or a self guided tour.

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia,Queensland,Brisbane

Holiday to Townsville

(Self proclaimed capital of Tropical North Queensland)

We had some air miles to use up before November courtesy of my old employer BA, so we had a look on the internet for places to go that were with in reach of the air miles I had accrued. After about a week we decided to try out Townsville primarily because we had never been there (and what better excuse do you need some times) and secondly we wanted to see how Amelia faired on a plane (would she sleep all the way there or scream the wings off and force us to return to Brisbane 5 minutes after take-off).

We took an early morning Qantas flight and we are happy to report Amelia seemed to cope quite well and so we got to Townsville around lunchtime and having checked in it the Holiday Inn went for lunch at a nearby cafe. In the afternoon while Amelia had a long sleep in her pushchair to recover from jet-lag we went around the aquarium Reef HQ. By the evening we were suffering the effects too and so ate at the Hotel restaurant.

The following day we walked all along the waterfront to the Rockpool where Amelia dipped her toes in the water and we had a nice lunch at the Greek restaurant opposite.

Thursday we had intended to get up early and walk up a castle hill a local landmark but Amelia keeps us up ’til late and we slept in, it was quite a humid day too so we decided to go to the Botanical gardens instead. The gardens were very nice and we hide in the shade at the hottest part of the day. Amelia liked the Rose garden most of all I think.

Friday, we decided to have a chill out day by the beach, there was a bit of a breeze so although it was sunny it was not too hot. We took a stroll along the sea front and got some lunch from a chippy the local fish is Barramundi, we have had fish and chips a few times but we never expected these 2 large pieces of fish, I did not eat all the chips I was so stuffed.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing its a bit difficult doing anything else when you just had whale and chip for your lunch. On the way back to the hotel to get changed for Dinner I noticed a new sign in the beach, “Beware Crocs about” The only safe places to swim in the sea around Northern Queensland is behind a stinger net, we missed the worst of the stinger season but being more risk averse in my old age I decided not to risk the water even though the water temp was a balmy 24deg C.

Saturday was over cast so we had our breakfast at a cafe then went to the museum of Tropical Queensland. The museum was a nice surprise I was not expecting much to be honest but it was very good. There was a big exhibition devoted to the story of the little known British war ship HMS Pandora, the Pandora was was sent to recapture and return to England for trial the mutineers of HMS Bounty.

The largest part of the exhibition is a a quarter sectional full size mock up of the HMS Pandora which almost fills the atrium/cafe area (not including the masts), several times a day you can have a go at being a gunner crew of a British Man-O-War. Although not the navy type myself, I did volunteer to man the gun for display purposes of the younger children in the 12-15 people in the audience. See the pictures of me running out the gun and aiming it, thanks to me and my gun crew aimer on the opposite side of the gun we managed 2 direct hits to a multi million dollar yacht in the marina! Time to make a quick getaway.

When we left the museum it was nearly 1pm and raining cats & dogs so we ducked (where have all these animals come from!) inside a Chinese restaurant for lunch before we caught the afternoon flight home, the people were just closing but we explained the situation and they very kindly let us sit down, the food was very good and so was the baby sitting service. The owner took a shine to Amelia and one lady ask if she could hold her, ‘Please do I said’ she then asked if she could go next door to show her to her friends next door. We got a meal and baby sitting service in one bargain.

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia,Queensland,Cairns

Today I decided to use the hostels relative isolation to my advantage and popped over to the Flecker Botanical Gardens. These are quite a long way from most of Cairns… and quite close to where I’m staying. Also I felt that it would be good to actually go out and do something today. I thought when I arrived that I really needed a bit of relaxation time, just hanging around being lazy, but in fact all that did was make me bored and moody.

On the way to the Botanical Gardens I passed by the Tank Arts Centre, I went in to have a look and check directions and was a tad surprised to find it was still in the process of being put up. I mentioned this to the receptionist and she said I could go right on in and look at what there actually was. Well mostly it was an empty hall with a few pictures propped up against the wall. I guess when completed the display will be some kind of spur to the social conscious, since the pictures were all arty posters on the theme of discrimination in it’s various forms.

The Gardens were just up the road from the half-finished gallery so after grabbing some refreshments at the cafe I scooted around to have a look. There was a small area displaying plants used by the Aborigines in some way, each with a small plaque describing the plant and how the Aborigines eat the seeds and used the branches to beat up on kangaroos etc. This led onto a variously diverging and converging series of paths through the ‘rainforest’ with plaques describing the various, presumably non-useful plants. Some I assume were less useful to Aborigines because of their distribution in South America or Africa! I ambled along this, again it was quite short and I soon emerged onto a more park-like area of lawn bordered by various tropical plants, so I looped back to have peek into the Fern House and the Orchid House, which were pretty much as advertised.

After that was another tiny little walk through the ‘Gondwanan Evolutionary Trail’, planted out to include plants covering the origin of life to the most modern plants (flowers, basically). Actually that’s a slight lie as there were some fossil stromatolites but I’m afraid no real ones, and I suppose I can assume there may have been some single celled blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria) lurking around being all microscopic, but I wouldn’t say they were actually displayed. The ‘Gondwanan’ bit is because the trail naturally enough followed plants as they evolved in Australia (or what would become Australia anyway. Probably a palm tree from the Jurassic didn’t go around saying “g’day mate”). And back in the day when the great continent of Pangaea, which included pretty much all the land, split in two, the bit that is known to geologists and their ilk as Gondwanaland included the future Australia. If memory serves, the other section (which includes future Wisbech) is known as Laurentia, but don’t quote me on that (unless I’ve fluked being right, in which case, definitely quote me).

Anyhoo… that kind of finished off the Flecker Botanical Gardens, and rather quickly too. But next to it was the Mount Whitfield Conservation Park. Since all the stuff in the Botanical Gardens had been so quick to do, and that was the main attraction (I hadn’t heard ofMount Whitfield until I saw it signposted) I figured it would just be another quick walk.

Haha. Seriously boys and girls, don’t go traipsing off into the rainforest without a map, on your own, and with no idea how far the walk is. If you do you are as “censored” stupid as me. Well alls well that ends well, but I got a wee bit worried after a while. It was all lovely at first, seeing all the trees and bush turkeys, and did have a real jungle feel to it. I even got to a lookout with a stunning view of the, uh, airport. After that was another trail leading in a downwards direction, which I assumed was the way down. Of course after a while it started going up again. It wasn’t supposed to do that! In fact it went so far up, I got another look at the airport from a different part of the top of Mount Whitfield. But then it went down again, so I breathed a sigh of relief. This must be it. But then… up again! All the way to the top, again. I was beginning to feel like the Grand Old Duke of York. Gaaah.

Eventually of course I did get down, since I’m writing this blog about it. But really it took way longer than I was expected- I think I did a full loop around the mountain. The walk itself was OK and nothing I couldn’t handle. I think I’m just a control freak; I don’t like not knowing where I am or how far I have to go. It turns out it was 7.4km over very up-and-down terrain, estimated time 4-5 hours. That did give me a smug feeling- I’d done it in three. Hooray! And I’d even got back just in time to grab a drink from the cafe at the Botanical Gardens. I was very much in a state at that point, drenched in sweat and looking pretty flustered, and the lady at the cafe even commented on it and asked where I had been. “Did you do the blue arrow trail?” I confirmed that I had. “In this heat!” she exclaimed with a sorrowful look. “Yeah that’s why I kind of really need this apple juice”.

But after apple juice it was time to go to the hostel for the most needed shower and change of clothes in the history of ever. And then of course to write all about it.

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Travel Location: Oceania,Australia,South-Australia,Adelaide

As we looked around, I was reminded of my visit to Lewes Prison. The original buildings have high, solid walls that are practially windowless. The cells are small and dark, and wouldn’t not have been a nice place to reside even for a short while. Walking round the buildings, it felt really quiet and almost peaceful. Very different to how it would have been when full of prisoners. There is also a newer building, modeled on the English ‘T’ shaped prisons, which the prisoners themselves helped to build. There are two cells down the one end of the ‘T’ in A wing, called the fridge – this is a place for prisoners to ‘cool off’ and a place for not even the loudest protest to be heard. The doors are two doors thick and nothing can be heard from the outside. Not particularly nice to look at, let alone be locked inside. Outside of the A wing walls is a cricket pitch to one side, and a prison cemetary to the other side. Anyone hung inside the prison was buried inside the prison walls – life in prison meant life in the prison walls, even after death. There is another set of graves along the north-west side of the outer wall – it’s here that Elizabeth Woolcock is buried. She was the first and only woman to be hung here (the only one in the whole of South Australia). The guilty verdict was given after the local townspeople gave evidence to suggest she’d poisoned her husband with mercury. She was hung and burried on 30th December 1893. A historian is currently working on a pardon to be granted to Elizabeth, after finding evidence that the poisoning could have occurred naturally as her husband was a miner and frequently came into contact with mercury.

In front of the guard tower on the north east side is yard four. It is here that there is a block of cells, including some called the ‘condemned’ cells. People that had been sentenced to death were kept here in these cells, on 24 hour suicide watch leading up to the hanging. There are only 3 cells in the corner of the building, and scratches and marks can be seen along the walls inside the cells. The gallows were originally outside of the prison walls, so that the public could attend them. They were eventually moved inside the prison walls and then on in to the hanging tower between 1953 – 1964. It’s claimed that some 2,000 people attended the last hanging at the Adelaide Gaol. Most of the 45 prisoners that were hung have got marked graves inside the prison walls.

On the top of the walls surrounding is yard is a series of bricks layed in a ‘honeycomb’ fashion. They are balanced, rather than cemented on top of the walls. The sound of falling bricks would alert guards to anyone trying to escape. There were several stories of people who tried to escape. Three actually made it over the walls and were away for several days before being found and taken back to the jail. There are exhibitions of the hooks and sheets bound together that were used to try and escape with. There are also several ‘keys’ that have been fashioned out of metal that prisoners tried to use to pick locks with. Other exhibitions include contraband items found in cells (crack-pipes, drugs, knives, homemade weapons), the cat-o-nine-tails and some photos of prison made tattoos and the instruments used. The gaol was eventually closed in 1988.

Various photos have been attached below to illustrate some of the sights! Enjoy x

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